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Could Conservation of energy actually apply on a Cosmic scale within our Universe?
WARNING, Long, complex, highly speculative, and will take more math,
knowledge, and data than I, or most of us, have to evaluate, but at least
worth the read IMHO.
The idea isn't anything like a 'theory', and I'm incapable of taking it much further.
It just seems too 'neat' not to play with, and maybe pursue a bit.
Known:
* We cannot account for the Dark Energy driving the observed, accelerating
expansion of our Universe.
* We observe the loss of energy in the Red Shifted photons due to that same expansion that is explained by it but not 'conserved' by the process.
*The two are connected, linked to the same process.
* The Dark Energy is reported to be increasing exponentially.
* Photons 'live' and lose energy by that Red Shift until they interact with
matter.
* The great majority of the Photons produced since 'transparency' are still
out there contributing to the referenced 'loss'.
and more free photons are constantly being produced.
*The energy they loose is therefore growing with their numbers on an exponential curve similar to an unregulated biological growth curve.
(Those familiar will know that these get steep.)
* The Total amount of 'lost' energy we discuss here is large:
( Consider only the CMB: It represents the energy concerned in the entire mass of the Universe from Gama ray color temperature to the present Microwave (~3 K.) Temperature. - That's a huge number and it represents only a small slice of the total.time involved!)
Speculation #1 Could these two energy quantities 'cancel out'?
Speculation #2 (Far more extreme) - Could the Loss somehow directly
drive the Expansion?
As to #1: A Value for Dark energy has been quantified within limits & published.
In regard to light energy lost: All i can say with any confidence is that the
two quantities seem bound to behave in a somewhat similar manner in regard to their growth.
I don't even have a clue how to quantify initial photon numbers, production over the time involved, and possibly 'variable with frequency', and thus time,
rate of energy loss per photon. (See #2).
One thing for sure, it will involve dealing with numbers at both ends of the
magnitude scale that even most scientific calculators don't have scale
space to hold in complex integration operations..
Any suggestions?
As to #2: A far out speculation, but is at at all reasonable to posit that the passage of a photon through quantum space creates a new Plank length
'bubble' in the Quantum foam with each rotation at it's frequency?
Since the 'space' created is mass-less the energy loss must appear
in the 'Motion' of the objects being 'separated'.
This is also oddly in accord with 'normal' thermodynamics in my experience.
Any comments?
Please, no nastier than "Oh what a noble mind is here oerthrown.!"
Edit: Are you 'it averages out over volume' answerers arguing that the same number of photons at lower frequency equal the same total quantity of energy? How? Have the Photons split
'Spread out' would involve the same frequency at lower intensity.
What I am concerned with in the speculation 2 is the mechanism
of the energy transfer at the quantum level.
6 Answers
- ?Lv 67 years agoFavourite answer
Most of what you list under "Known" should really be listed under "Speculation". We do not observe any sort of expansion of the unverse. We do not observe galaxies flying away from each other. We observe that galaxies have redshifts that are generally proportional to their luminosities. Mainstream cosmology simply speculates that the redshifts of distant galaxies are a doppler-like effect, implying what you suggest is observed. This is likely to be wrong though. If redshifts were a doppler effect, the light curves (charting oscillation in luminance) of quasars would be stretched out the same way their wavelengths are, but they aren't:
http://phys.org/news190027752.html
It's much more likely that galactic redshifts are due to light losing energy to the intergalactic medium, and there is no expansion or dark energy.
This documentary may enlighten you:
Source(s): http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/universe/ - RickBLv 77 years ago
Your question is more subtle than some responders are giving you credit for. The issue of decreasing photon energy due to cosmological redshift is addressed in an article in the July, 2010 issue of Scientific American magazine. (You can purchase an electronic copy of the issue at the Scientific American website: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=i... )
The article is called "Is the Universe Leaking Energy," by physicist Tamara Davis, and it's written in a form that is accessible to the lay person. Dr. Davis' conclusion basically is: Yes, the total energy IS decreasing, but this fact doesn't violation the conservation of energy, because conservation laws don't apply to space geometries that evolve over time (as our universe's geometry is clearly doing).
Regarding your speculation that the energy deficit is compensated by dark energy, the article has this to say:
"The situation would be even more complicated if the accountants were to count dark energy, which is what is causing the universe’s expansion to accelerate. The nature and properties of dark energy are still a complete mystery, but it appears that dark energy does not dilute as the universe expands. Thus, as the volume in our membrane increases, the amount of energy in that volume increases as well, with the additional energy seemingly coming out of nowhere! One might think that the increase in dark energy could balance out the losses in all other forms of energy, but that is not the case. Even if we take dark energy into account, the total energy within the membrane is not conserved."
- John WLv 77 years ago
In that it all adds to zero, even now it all adds to zero. People only have problems with the conservation laws because they are not considering everything. Include Quantum Mechanics, gravity, dark energy, the expansion of space, mass, time and it all adds to zero.
The loss of energy in the photon due to the red shift is accounted for by the expansion of the Universe. Compress the space back to your reference point and no energy was lost. The CMBR is the same energy now at 2.75 Kelvin as it was when it was tens of thousands of degrees kelvin, it's just spread out over a much larger space, this is analogous to spherical divergence. There is no problem with conservation with this.
The expansion of space is a return to maximum entropy, a return of nothing to nothing.
You're referencing observations as "knowns" and though that may be a suitable representation, I think it's somewhat presumptuous and should be referenced as observations.
- ?Lv 77 years ago
Are you suggesting that the red-shift of the CMB represents a loss of energy inconsistent with conservation of energy? Not so, because while the energy decreases locally, it spreads out over a larger volume, so the total energy remains the same.
- who WAS #1?Lv 77 years ago
I'm buying into the theory that gravity is electromagnetic and that dark energy is accounted for by it basically being "spiritual" energy.
This book is a unified theory which I believe to be true:
Spiritual energy can not be measured with our scientific instruments.
